Secret Court Renews NSA’s Phone Record Authority

The usually secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved a renewal of an order allowing the National Security Agency to continue collecting data about phone calls made by most Americans, the Office of Director of National Intelligence said Friday.

The news marked a rare public announcement about such government or orders issued by the surveillance court. An announcement by DNI said it was taking that step “in light of the significant and continuing public interest” in the NSA program that scoops up telephone “metadata,” the information about when calls were made and the numbers involved.

An earlier order on telephone data by the surveillance court was among documents leaked last month by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who divulged information about NSA programs.

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